How to Generate ROI from an Employee Training Tracker

An employee training tracker is designed to monitor employees progress during training programs. They are useful not only for assessing employees, but also the effectiveness of training programs as a whole.

A training tracker can not only generate ROI for employees, by improving productivity, but also ROI in terms of the program itself.

The ROI of an Employee Training Tracker

Here are a few ways that employee training trackers, or employee monitoring tools, can generate ROI for a business:

• Decrease onboarding time. Training trackers analyze a training program, as mentioned, and overtime they can be used to optimize and shorten the length of that program. Since employee onboarding and training go hand-in-hand, shortening the training time also shortens employee onboarding time. 
• Improve time-to-competency. It takes time for employees to become fully productive. This measure is known as time-to-productivity or time-to-competency. Since training trackers are intended to improve training effectiveness, they also shorten the time it takes employees to acquire new skills.
• Enhance the employee experience. Training directly affects the employee experience – the better the training, the better the experience. And, since employee training affects the employee experience, it also affects other metrics such as employee retention, job satisfaction, recruitment costs, and more.

In short, employee training trackers can positively affect how productive employees are, which, in turn, can affect the organization’s performance. 

Measuring the Effectiveness of Employee Training

Employee training trackers are much like employee productivity trackers. They are software applications designed to assess and monitor employee performance during a training program.

The way a training tracker operates will differ depending on the type of training in question. For instance, the type of tracking used for video training will differ from the type of tracking used for software training.

Despite this specific difference, they do tend to track the same overall types of metrics.

Examples include:

Time 

Assessing training programs involves analyzing the total time spent at a macro and micro level. 

For example, employers will want to know the total time it takes employees to achieve productivity, as well as micro-level details related to specific types of training – for instance, how long a specific course takes to complete.

Gaining such insights into a training program will help them determine the ROI of a training program.

Tasks

Another factor that affects training metrics is the task in question.

Some tasks, after all, are more complex than others. Tasks also differ in terms of how much they contribute to an organization’s performance.

Weighing tasks against their costs and their benefits is way to determine the costs of different training methods. 

For example, training someone to use a cash register is far different than training someone to use a complex B2B software application.

Type of Training

Here are a few examples of the different types of training that can be used in a workplace:

• Software walkthroughs
• Video tutorials
• Classroom training
• Text manuals
• Online knowledgebases
• Self-service platforms

Categorizing the type of training being used is fundamental to understanding which types of trainings work best in which circumstances.

Completion Rates

Not all employees complete their training programs. 

When measuring the effectiveness of a training program, it is important to gauge which employees complete those programs, which ones don’t, where they abandon training courses, and so forth.

Productivity Impact

Training trackers should be integrated with productivity trackers for best results.

Understanding the training program’s impact on employee performance, after all, is the main focus of a training tracker.

Therefore, it is important to measure the impact a training program will have on productivity. If, for example, employees complete programs successfully, but they do not become more productive, the training program would clearly need improvement.

Financial Returns

To assess the financial returns of a training program, it is necessary to tie the training metrics to productivity metrics, and then to tie those productivity metrics to financial metrics.

For example, imagine a training program decreases the completion time of a particular task by 20%. The financial return on that productivity boost of 20% can then be measured against the cost of training.

How to Monitor Employee Training

There are as many approaches to tracking training as there are training methods.

In general, however, software is the best solution for evaluating employee learning and training programs.

For instance:

• Software analytics can be used to track the completion of software walkthroughs
• Video analytics can track the completion of video courses
• Online tests can be used as knowledge assessments

This information, in turn, can be integrated with other metrics, as mentioned, such as productivity metrics and financial metrics.

A data-driven approach such as this has many advantages over “traditional” methods, such as classroom training. That being said, it is not wise to completely remove humans from the loop.

Certain types of feedback, after all, can only be delivered by humans to humans. Employee surveys and one-on-one discussions, for instance, can offer insights that automated data collection cannot.

In summary, training tracking programs should consist of a combination of elements, including:

• Data, metrics, and analytics
• Feedback from employees
• Software and human-led training
• Evaluations both of employees’ proficiency as well as the effectiveness of the program

Every training program should continually evolve. Analyzing the effectiveness both of the program and of employees’ progress can ensure that the program continues to evolve and generate an increasing ROI over time.

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